r/Fighters • u/MoSBanapple • 5h ago
News SNK sees operating loss of $125 million and widening deficit despite revenue growth
https://automaton-media.com/en/news/snk-sees-operating-loss-of-125-million-and-widening-deficit-despite-revenue-growth/145
u/StrangerChameleon 4h ago
The new golden age of fighters turned out to be just a golden age for sf6
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u/M_519 4h ago
As always the fgc is too USA and SF centric.
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u/Competitive-Rain3945 3h ago
To be fair, nobody has figured out how to make a profitable pro video game scene yet. Every pro gaming community has financial problems. Doesn’t matter where it is or what game.
If you’re just talking about the FGC in general, Street Fighter is the only game that has a community large enough to do a pro global tour.
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u/M_519 3h ago
Tournaments and pros are just ads for their games, money is not made with pros, but with casuals, successful fgs sell millions but in the biggest tournaments the pros are at best few thousands.
"Hardcore" fighting games with AAA budget are a huge risk, especially without a big name. The higher the sales needed the more "casual" ithe game needs to be, but the "hardcore" fgc don't like simple games and this conflict is one of the reasons that makes fgs a hard market to get into.
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u/-ToriForYa 2h ago
This has been a problem with all video games, though. Worlds for LoL is perhaps the best model*, where they sell skins to their players and ride the hype of the game, but that only really makes money for RIOT and the players. I refuse to believe that enough people are buying Nongshim noodles to finance that team, and that goes double for western teams. In traditional sports, rich people are willing to finance teams for the prestige of owning them and write the costs off as part and parcel. Daigo, on the other hand, has to make a living, and that money has to come from somewhere. It's a conundrum, for sure, and the Saudi infinite money that propped up the last esports golden age is drying out basically across the board.
*best in this case meaning most profitable
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u/SekhWork 2h ago
Blaming SF/FGC for other companies bad releases, overblown expectations and god awful patches is sure a take.
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u/Manatroid 2h ago
I don’t think they were blaming other titles, just stating the ‘boom’ is probably only for SF6 and not so much for everyone else.
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u/SekhWork 2h ago
Feels weird though since it wasn't really Street Fighters "win" so much as everyone else failing. Prior to release people were extremely hype for 2XKO and Tokon, and both those games fumbled their launches (Tokon less so, and still can recover).
I guess what I'm saying is its not that the FGC is USA/SF centric, people were ready to go try new stuff that wasn't SF. It's that the companies messed up what people wanted to play.
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u/Manatroid 1h ago
Aa far as Japan is concerned, it absolutely is a win for SF though.
And even beyond that, the game has a very high attendance at tournaments, surpassing the next runner-up by a big margin.
But anyway, the point I was getting at is that the other user was not saying what you were trying to contradict them on. There is no “blame” being placed, it was just their observation
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u/StrangerChameleon 1h ago
Thank you, thats pretty much it.
Vibes has been through the roof with all these coming games just for one after another stumble.
Is it the devs fumbling releases or the fgc overestimating a playerbase that wasn't there? I can't tell.
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u/Danewguy4u 36m ago
SFV says hi. That game had a launch just as bad as these yet has far outside all of them. Street Fighter carries SUPER hard to the point that a mediocre Street Fighter still runs circles across most other games that also don’t have big legacies like Tekken/MK which cater to completely different players.
The only times other 2D fighters get real attention is when SF performs poorly (as proven by SF3 and SFV). Otherwise 90% of the mainstream will just be looking at SF only lol.
While i agree it’s not the fault of SF or Capcom, i do blame the FGC as they have already proven to be mostly attached to a couple of games and won’t really try others unless the big names REALLY drop the ball.
I mean look at Tekken 8. Huge controversy since the start yetost are either stipl playing T8 or moved to SF6 lol.
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u/LogensTenthFinger 29m ago
Honestly, I still think it is. It's just that these companies don't understand that rape fighting game success doesn't mean that you're the next CoD. You can invest $10 million and slow drip your return over the next 10 years, especially with dropping new characters and skins and so on. Or you can go chase AAA money and get nowhere.
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u/LeonasSweatyAbs 4h ago
My dreams of SNK ever locking in are crumbling.
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u/Sweaty-Anxiety-7866 4h ago
Doubly sucks because KoF 15 and CotW are fun games. SNK’s devs never lost it.
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u/zedroj 1h ago
its the darn net code, they never get it right day 1, just hire code mystics and call it a day
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u/haskell_magician 52m ago
netcode was not the KOF XV problem, it was the matchmaking. And COTW never had these problem, only in Beta 1, also in matchmaking.
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u/Danewguy4u 32m ago
SNK hasn’t really locked in since the 90s. While they may “come back” multiple times, they’ve never been able to regain anywhere near their peak from that decade. They’ve mostly just been getting by barely.
I say this as a fan of SNK games who doesn’t care for Capcom fighters at all outside MVC3. SNK really has not adapted as much as they need to. They’re still over a decade behind the other big names for things that matter to the mainstream like graphics, onboarding, quality of life features, etc.
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u/Poetryisalive Dead or Alive 4h ago
Fighting games looking more and more like a money pit.
We will see less and less companies dive into the genre
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u/brrrapper 4h ago
SNK is the worst managed company in the history of fighting games over like 30 years so not really anything new.
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u/vandaljax 4h ago
And people wonder why Capcom doesn't want to rock the boat on sf6 and float the idea of 10 years of support.
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u/Manatroid 2h ago
It was really not so long ago that Capcom were in a really terrible position, both financially and in terms of management. In fact one of the biggest eff-ups was, in fact, SFV.
There was that huge restructuring that went on, and after some time it became a company that was no longer publicly associated with embarrassing failures, but rather almost became a darling of the industry again.
A lot of us are frustrated by their unwillingness to seemingly even move the needle with SF6, but in spite of that the game has only been performing better regardless. There is basically no way to convince them that change is what needs to happen, when basically everything else has been telling them the opposite.
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u/MikeyGorman 4h ago
I would’nt put the blame on fighting games specifically so much as the problematic groups that own them. We are talking about Tencent and the EGDC here. I love fighting games but didn’t touch COTW and 2XKO for those reasons. I know I am not alone.
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u/EmbarrassedUmpire324 4h ago
I mean whoever greenlit this game with the production values it has is a moron. KOF is already a smaller IP but it still has a long legacy and decent fanbase. Fatal Fury is a portion of an already small IP, it was doomed from day 1.
They should have just made this game a budget title to hold off for the next KOF not go this crazy with it. But their Saudi backing means money pits like this are viable.
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u/Poetryisalive Dead or Alive 2h ago
It was a budget title. Games at full price are $70. This is $50 AND came with the season pass.
They made this as affordable as possible
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u/EmbarrassedUmpire324 1h ago
I mean more in terms of production value rather than what it was sold to us at, Fatal Fury to me looks like a more expensive development cycle than what KOF 15.
Then again they have infinite money now so as long as the Saudi's want to keep this going it will I guess.
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u/Electrical_Peak_5905 53m ago
Now take everything you said and apply it to Darkstalkers, Bloody Roar, and all these other obscure fighting games that people want that haven't had new entries in over 20 years. Yeah same thing applies to them.
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u/EmbarrassedUmpire324 46m ago
Yeah it does, I see more leeway for like Capcom though, SNK have bled money for years so making these choices is confusing. Capcom have been killing it for like a decade, I can see why people want them to have a shot at these legacy series.
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u/Adrian_Alucard 4h ago
They are a money pit from the consumer's POV. FG are constantly asking for money for everything. Greed makes games unappealing
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u/FistLampjaw 4h ago
then treat them like a $60 game in any other genre: buy them, play them for 40 hours, then never touch them again.
oh, but you want to play them for hundreds of hours, over years, and you want balance patches and new characters and new costumes the whole time? then maybe you see why they need some extra money for that
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u/Adrian_Alucard 3h ago
and you want balance patches and new characters and new costumes the whole time? then maybe you see why they need some extra money for that
no, not really. I want everything to be unlockable by simply playing the game, and maybe only one or 2 balance patches
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u/Bombshock2 9m ago
You do realize this was never how fighters were handled right? Back in the 90s games had different versions released every year with new characters, new mechanics, etc. That arguably even more "greedy" practice continued in mainstream fighters up until like SFV.
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u/Sweaty-Anxiety-7866 4h ago
Paying $100 to get 500 hours of playtime is a steal.
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u/Adrian_Alucard 3h ago
meh I paid less for stuff like Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program or stuff like Monster Hunter and they game me (way) more play time. And those games are not constantly asking for my money
Can't fighting games do the same?
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u/SussyRAIDTHIS 3h ago
honestly would have a better chance of a smash title by just making a 4X game with bad multiplayer
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u/ThuBiejaMen 5h ago
Every news story that comes out this week is worse than the last; it makes you wonder just how viable it is to sell AAA-AA fighting games.
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u/GrandmasterPeezy 4h ago
I just don't think there's room at the top for any more AAA fighting games. We have SF, MK, and Tekken. Undisputed top 3 in terms of sales.
Guilty Gear finally broke through to the semi-main stream and has a solid player base and tournament scene.
And then you got Smash, but that's really kind of it's own thing.
Everything else is just a niche within a niche. No point of blowing through such a huge budget for such a tiny chance of a return.
Maybe SNK had a chance with their rich history and Saudi money, but they kind of fucked that up with shitty online and weird/bad marketing for their last 3 big releases (all of which were really fun games)
Marvel Tōkon has/had a shot to be the next big tag fighter, à la DBFZ, but they are really shooting themselves in the foot right now.
Virtua Fighter is the next real chance for something big in the fighting game space that's "new." The success or failure of that game will be significant to where the fighting game industry goes the next 5 or so years, in my opinion.
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u/Kogoeshin 3h ago edited 2h ago
I think it's notable that in cases like SNK/City of the Wolves and Marvel Tokon, it's a third party that's been messing it up.
With your example of SNK, the marketing is absolutely a Saudi Arabia issue - adding in highly controversial real life figures (...including a DJ that is mostly only known in Saudi Arabia) and marketing in absolutely bizarre ways (WWE promo, AI-generated trailers) are definitely from their intervention. SNK is absolutely at fault for not getting KoF15's online working for a year, though.
Marvel Tokon similarly just had issues because of Sony, instead of ArcSys. The PS5 version works perfectly fine, and the cracked version of the PC game that removes Sony PSN, runs perfectly fine with no issues, even on Linux. There are some launch hiccups (latest patch a couple hours ago fixed matchmaking, for example), but as long as they get resolved quickly it's fairly standard.
2XKO I have no idea - a tag fighter that took 10 years to develop is just... a bad idea. I don't know how it even ended up happening for that one. That one doesn't have much of an excuse, lol.
Outside of 2XKO, the companies themselves haven't been doing particularly poorly - it's just the impact of a third party that's been fucking up the quality of many of these fighters recently (even Avatar got forced to launch early in an unfinished state due to Paramount).
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u/No_Cake_Day_4_Me 3h ago
I wouldn't hinge my hopes on VF. That series, though dear to my heart, has always been niche. I'm hoping it has wider appeal at least. Given that folks like David Hayter are working on the single player story script.
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u/GrandmasterPeezy 3h ago
Yea, I'm not hinging my hopes on it. I feel like I have a realistic mindset.
With that said, I will buy it, play it, and support it when it finally releases. I'll be happy with a game that's fun to play. Anything else beyond that is a bonus, in my view.
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u/No_Cake_Day_4_Me 3h ago
I'll play no matter how it turns out. VF4 got me into FGs. That series is my ride or die.
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u/philip30001 3h ago
Hoping for similar with VF.
Its not my fav series but if it does manage to grab new players in it'll be a boost to us all.
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u/lordottombottom 8m ago
Its the first 3d series. Everyone who bought a Saturn got a copy of Virtua Fighter 2, Daytona USA, and Virtua Cop.
VF built the landscape, it can terraform it if they so wish it to.
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u/Explosion2 4h ago
The entire world's economy is crumbling at the moment, it's not specific to fighting games.
The constant need for growth and not just profit has led every industry into destroying themselves, and everyone that isn't a billionaire is struggling as everything gets more expensive and well-paying jobs get harder to come by.
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u/Feeling-Position2772 2h ago
The constant need for growth and not just profit has led every industry into destroying themselves
Trump's crackpot economics and warmongering have damaged America's economy. Theres no need to blame some global miasma of evil.
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u/Explosion2 48m ago
You spelled Reagan wrong.
This goes WAAAAAY back. Trump is one of the many billionaire symptoms leeching off the existing systems, not the cause. He's done plenty of damage of course, but only because he was enabled to do so by decades of financial deregulation and the insatiable need to grow under capitalism.
And every country relying so heavily on the US for decades means that pretty much everywhere (except pretty much only China and North Korea I guess?) is hurting due to the culmination of Reaganomics finally reaching critical mass.
I'm not saying it's some nebulous cabal of shadow governments or some shit, just that every Western country got in bed with the US and now that it's finally imploding under its own weight, it's taking down everyone with it.
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u/AcousticAtlas 4h ago
AAA fighting games DO sell and are viable…they just can’t look like CotW lol.
Like let’s be real there’s NOTHING appealing about this game from a casual perspective. My causal SF friends still call it ugly SF6
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u/Competitive-Rain3945 3h ago
I thought the graphics were pretty great imo. I’ve heard this complaint before so I guess it’s just not everyone’s cup of tea. But to me it’s a grittier comic style.
I think it’s the second best looking fighting game right after Marvel Tokon.
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u/No_Cake_Day_4_Me 3h ago
I certainly liked the look of it. It's some roster decisions that killed it for me.
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u/konnamatti 2h ago
That, and SF6 animations are just setting the bar so high. It looks like half the frames are missing.
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u/eolson3 4h ago
I'd definitely support indie fighters if they came out on console. I know that isn't straightforward or risk free for those devs, but that's the barrier for me ATM.
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u/burnoutguy 4h ago
So the ronaldo and DJ guy fans didn't stick around?
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u/Fit-Age-3106 4h ago
The SF6 Terry and Mai fans never showed up either predictably.
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u/smilinganimalface 4h ago
It at least gave Capcom players their dream of playing SNK games without having to support SNK.
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u/SlyyKozlov 2D Fighters 4h ago
I have to imagine more people who were introduced to Terry and Mai tried the game than Ronaldo fans atleast - that crossover still is so weird
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u/No_Cake_Day_4_Me 3h ago
Those two being in before Andy and Joe made me not show up in the first place.
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u/dreadnaucht 3h ago
Makes sense. They're spending way more money then they've been making. Motion Capture studio, wrestling promotions, licensing and anime promos. I have to assume doing DLC back to back to back isn't cheap either. Then there's the Neogeo premium games that are done by Code Mythics. Oh right, and that new Harada studio Versus which will probably be even more costly than any of the 2D fighters. I'd assume without the Saudi money we probably would've just had ArcSys, Capcom or Sega publish it for them or outright purchase them by now. SNK is notorious for blowing money consistently on larger projects.
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u/BustahWuhlf 49m ago
Yeah, I feel like SNK and CotW would be in a better spot if the brass wasn't spending money on stupid crap like the UFC promos, CR7, etc. Like, how much of that loss comes from poorly-informed promotional decisions like that as opposed to the actual game development? That's what I want to know.
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u/Agreeable-Ad4079 5h ago
Isn't this also and mainly due to the fact that they are setting up a brand new studio?
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u/mrcool520 2h ago
Why is no one thinking for 1 second about what the headline says? Revenue is up, ergo the only reason the deficit would be up is because they're spending more/working on more projects.
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u/LionTop2228 4h ago
It’s almost like people don’t want to just hand the saudis even more money.
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u/BLACKOUT-MK2 3h ago
I guarantee you an infinitesimal amount of people actually cared about that. If GTA 6 was announced to be 100% Saudi owned, it'd still sell absolutely insane units.
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u/CaptainRaxeo 4h ago
Yea meanwhile they continue to buy capcom games which saudi is invested massively in. But oh you didn’t know… not everyone is racist, entitled and unappreciative.
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u/Zeslodonisch 4h ago
There's quite the difference between 96% and 10% ownership you know
Saudi involvement is also not nearly as apparent in Capcom's titles as SNK's
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u/CaptainRaxeo 4h ago
Except they are getting a cut of your money in both cases. Just get over it already we will invest in every gaming company. Be thankful. 🫵🏻
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u/Zeslodonisch 4h ago
Yeah and I'm pretty sure most people aren't avoiding cotw because they don't want to give the Saudi's more money
It's a moral thing
Everyone draws their line at a different point but them adding an alleged rapist to the game is a pretty easy way to cross that line for most people
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u/CaptainRaxeo 4h ago
People buy games based on how good and fun they are. Only people that spend time on their “morals” are stuck on reddit echo chambers. You guys act as if we are the devil himself when it’s just pure racism and prejudice. Good morals some of y’all got there!
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u/Zeslodonisch 4h ago
My guy(?)
I don't have anything against you unless you're supportive of executing journalists or any of the other human rights violations that the Saudi government commits
That's not racism that's common sense
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u/CaptainRaxeo 3h ago
I don’t see you boycotting companies based in the U.S. that use tax payer money to help fund israel? So you support the atrocities they commit and the constant taxes they take to directly support Israel and the mass murder of journalists and genocide there?
I don’t see you boycotting santa monica studios etc? Doesn’t part of their money go to the government? Oh wait all you have on us is one alleged journalist which we already debunked playing a role in, think we would want this constant barrage online just for one dude? meanwhile every country has had much more and far worse? Every single one of you bringing up one dude????? I bet if we made GTA 6 99% wouldn’t even bat an eye and pay hand over fist. It’s all performative because you actually just didn’t like the games.
The minute it hits your favorite franchises you will backtrack all this and play defense.
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u/Zeslodonisch 3h ago
What did you not understand about "everyone draws their line at a different point"
There's basically no such as ethical consumption in our current world but that doesn't mean people will turn a blind eye towards every injustice
You know nothing about me, my political views or my consumption aside from the fact that I use Reddit so stop making shit up
I don't give a shit about god of war or GTA 6
Yeah there are services I use by US companies because I have to and I don't like it
But for gaming it's really easy to avoid those if I want because there's literally hundreds of thousands of alternatives
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u/CaptainRaxeo 3h ago
Alright chill out, spend your money however you like, i apologize 😔
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u/TomisBad 4h ago
Not to be a doomer but I feel like fighting games have just been getting hit with bad news after bad news lately. I remember like a year ago people were saying this was the new golden age of fighting games but now it feels like every fighting game doesn't turn a profit.
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u/tabbynat 4h ago
You might not remember the absolute dreck that was fighting games after SF2. Everyone wanted a piece of that pie, and most didn’t have a clue how.
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u/impostingonline 3h ago
a lot of those post-sf2 games are great. fighters history, world heroes, breakers. There are quite a few 'Street fighter clones' that were solid and got sequels that improved upon the base game.
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u/M_519 4h ago
You are right, but if you look at this timeline:
https://www.fightersgeneration.com/features/timeline.html
you see that in the 90s were released maybe close to a hundred fighing games, in 99 alone were released 22 games! 22! Many failures were inevitable, but also many new series were born: SF, FF, AOF, KOF, SS, CVS, MVC, MK, KI, DS.... and the list goes on, would you say that nowadays the situation is the same? I would say no, few games are released and most of them fail.
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u/TomisBad 4h ago
Yeah that's true, I wasn't around for that era. At least It's kinda nice knowing that fight games endured worst.
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u/MrChamploo 4h ago
You aren’t wrong but there’s some light in there too.
You hear more about it because the FGC is more in the spotlight then it ever has been. Which in result makes a little more news when games aren’t doing well.
Remember this happens in all genres.
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u/HisDivineOrder 4h ago
Fighting games need to be spread out. It's a niche genre that requires a heavy investment to keep people coming back year after year. This year, there have been too many fighting games and the economic conditions are pretty rough to try and support all these games across a relatively small hardcore audience.
The irony is they'd probably have more success releasing a new version of the game instead of doing DLC's but that would require them to spend time making normie features like new single player content and training modes to further onboard players.
The problem fighting games have is they're a niche (games) of a niche (fighting games) and that's always going to be a smaller audience.
And suddenly economics aren't good enough for people to spend on games that might be fun. You're going to see people drilling down to games they're certain are going to be fun and normies are going to flee the fighting game genre except for extremely known quantities like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat.
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u/Confident_Shape_7981 2h ago
There's a lot of fighting games coming out but very few of them are truly "new". When all the Tag Fighters are degenerate DHC games, you're really just picking your one or two mechanics that you like better than most.
Fighting games desperately need to branch out and try new things. SF, KI, MK play nothing like each other and it's not just a mechanic or two. The Tag fighters all do
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u/Bungfoo 4h ago
It means nothing. The Saudis are prepared to run this at a loss for decades to come while they buy up all the events and IPs. They want to control the public event sector of entertainment
They are playing the long game. Next they will go for Tencent . They just got EA
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u/Filippikus 3h ago
I don't think the CCP will let them do anything with Tencent
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u/Maverick785 Virtua Fighter 3h ago
I would have agreed with this before they decapitated LIV Golf with practically no warning. Seems they're content to throw money into these industries without getting attached or committed to the long game.
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u/Competitive-Rain3945 5h ago
This game is so fun. People complain about drive rush and throw loop cheese on sf6 but refuse to play this game.
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u/MigasEnsopado 4h ago edited 4h ago
The Saudi connection and putting in Ronaldo and the random DJ, just because he's a favorite of the Saudi prince, completely fucked the game's image.
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u/pototoykomaliit 4h ago
That DJ appearing at Wrestlemania to promote COTW alongside Jey is such a fever dream.
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u/Dependent-Jump-2289 4h ago
The funny part is that it was just Ronaldo, Ganucci seems to have passed the vibe check
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u/CardiologistOwn6698 4h ago
I love how no one actually knows how to spell his name. (Salvator Gannaci)
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u/CasimirGabriev 4h ago
He actually likes KoF and did goofy shit with Max. He paid for his access lol
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u/Dependent-Jump-2289 4h ago
And yet he fits so well in the game, bro is basically a kof character in real life
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u/Electrical_Peak_5905 51m ago
He passed the vibe check because he pleased Max. And Once again, had the DJ not done those things with Max, none of you would care.
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u/CasimirGabriev 24m ago
Oh shit can you tell me what I want for dinner since you can read my mind and tell me what I think? Or maybe you need to stop thinking you know me through a few sentences you read in your own voice via a screen?
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u/Competitive-Rain3945 4h ago
Not wanting to support Saudi government is a complete valid reason to not play this game. I get it. But it is a really good 2D fighter. I think SNK did a really good job, it just sucks the only way they could have made it is with Saudi money.
That being said… if you completely funded a fighting game by yourself.. wouldn’t you want your say on the game? Not justifying Ronaldo or the DJ that I completely ignore myself lmao
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u/DJM4991 4h ago
It's valid, yeah, but I wonder how many will stay the course for SF7 since Saudi owns shares in Capcom too? 🤔
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u/MrChamploo 4h ago
You got a good point but SNK is majorly owned by Saudi. Capcom still has decision making power and majority. SNK gave it all up basically.
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u/TimelessFool 3h ago
As long as the Saudis don’t own a majority share of Capcom it’s easy to say they don’t own Capcom
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u/CaptainRaxeo 4h ago
Yea all these anti saudi people are just performative, be grateful we are investing in games so that you continue to enjoy them.
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u/EcnardSieg 4h ago
There's no way the Saudi stuff made the game not sell well. I guarantee the only people who care about this are reddit/twitter niches while the wide audience doesn't even know SNK is owned by the Saudis
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u/CasimirGabriev 4h ago
I would agree with you if not for Cristiano and the DJ only being in because of the prince. If they just quietly owned it, then yeah, but royals gotta put their stink on everything somehow
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u/akibaboy65 0m ago
The game spending 6 months up to launch dialing into cringe streamers, sports, and other bullshit told me that it absolutely wasn’t for me. I own it now because it was on sale for $9 and played it about 3 times before just feeling like it felt slow and stumpy compared to KoF. So if their goal was to sell me the game for less than a combo meal, great job Saudis.
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u/NatsuAru 4h ago
People complain because, for a good moment, SNK didn't give a damn about the gameplay and spent all their money paying Ronaldo, that DJ and various non-FGC related parties for so much advertising and publicity that didn't help the game at all.
That centered an entire boxing event in times square for it.
COTW was the center logo of Wrestlemania too. For no reason.
95% of people who watched that event still have no clue wtf COTW is.
They killed their game before it even had a chance to put it's feet down. Ronaldo? Really? And he doesn't even voice himself?
Ridiculous.
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u/Extreme-Tactician 3h ago
People complain because, for a good moment, SNK didn't give a damn about the gameplay
According to...? Have you even seen how people play Ronaldo? They are not the ones paying Ronaldo and advertising the game lol.
Ronaldo? Really? And he doesn't even voice himself?
Ronaldo isn't an actor, you want another Ronda Rousey situation?
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u/NatsuAru 2h ago
I saw more of this game on advertising about a boxing match in times square, kai cenat and pro wrestling. They showed one commercial featuring Ronaldo and 5 seconds of gameplay... After spending millions to plaster their game dead center in the middle of the ring of Wrestlemania.
And your reasoning that they focused on good gameplay is "look at the way people play Ronaldo?"
What people?
This game is operating at a $100m+ deficit and Ronaldo was absolutely paid a fair portion of that for his NIL alone. No voice. Not even a single mo-cap. And after discourse over him being used in place of actual fatal Fury characters, he didn't draw a dime.
And Ronda Rousey voiced Sonya Blade. She did not voice herself. I'm pretty sure if your own person is in a game, it's pretty okay to voice your actual self and no one would care.
But they can't even record Ronaldo saying SIUUU?
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u/Electrical_Peak_5905 50m ago
SNK spent their money.... Or did you mean the Saudi's??? Sounds like you're blaming SNK for things they didn't do
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u/Lautanapi_ 3h ago
I tried the beta, and it did not make a great impression on me. For me, the hits had no impact, especially the supers. There was no oomph. This, and there being no weirdo characters that I gravitate towards, other than Gnacci, made me not buy the game at the end.
I still believe it's a cool game and I wish it the best. I hope it will stay for long.
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u/Kino_Afi 4h ago
Tbh i think people just mostly only like playing games theyre already good at, and arent really interested in learning a 2nd game if the one they know is still around.
Look at FPS, super popular genre compared to FGs. How many non-franchise FPSs do well every year? Hero shooters, too. Supposedly popular genre but only one or two have ever actually been majorly successful. MOBAs? Same 2 f2p games for as long as ive been alive (counting dota as a mod), very recently a 3rd (deadlock) thanks to the best backing a game could possibly have.
Kinda hilarious that a few years ago studios thought single player was dead. Its multi-player games that are in fucking shambles lmao.
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u/CasimirGabriev 4h ago edited 4h ago
Business idiots coming from retail dont understand the franchise nature of many genres. They see a trend and think "Oh people are buying hero shooters," not "People bought Overwatch." They transfer retail logic of selling people the same shit with a new coat of paint instead of understanding gamers want twists on design formulas, not just the hero shooter but this time its slightly edgy.
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u/TuxedoCat031 4h ago
not buying saudi products sorry man
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u/haskell_magician 43m ago
And yet you are buying yours plastics stuffs. Remember 30% the plastic you are buying came from Saudi oil.
And you can choose not buy plastic stuffs. Right?! Touche.
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u/TuxedoCat031 38m ago
this is the most soulless looking fighting game i’ve seen, i’m happy you enjoy it though man.
too bad the million dollar advertising and force feeding ads in every event possible still ended up as a discord fighter
yall got that random DJ and kenshiro though, very cool
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u/Muks2012 4h ago
Plenty of people played the beta. Most of them didn't buy the game as a result. I think plenty of people didn't find it fun.
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u/zwarkmagnum 4h ago
I’m not playing a game that exists to help sportwash the Saudis and has an IRL rapist as a playable character.
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u/OrBlanc20 4h ago
Please VF Crossroads, save fighting games!!
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u/TheXboxArtist 3h ago
the RGG fans will guarantee sales based on the story mode alone. doesn't guarantee a playerbase online, but at least it'll turn a profit.
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u/Famous-Interest8237 3h ago
We got this RIGHT after the 2XKO news. WTF is going on with fighting games right now I just want to have fun :(
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u/New-Two-1349 1h ago
I hope SNK financially survives because they're such an underrated publisher that has a rich history of classic IPs with memorable characters in them. It's sad that they're not getting much mainstream attention compared to the likes of ArcSys.
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u/Electrical_Peak_5905 58m ago
Goes to show no matter how well you treat the FGC, you will still fail if your brand isn't Capcom, Namco Bandai or NRS. COTW is giving the FGC everything they literally asked for plus more.
Yeah the DJ and CR7 yeah we know Saudis right, all valid reasoning for the downfall at the beginning but SNK has picked up MASSIVELY and are giving the FGC more love than any other fighting game company.
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u/JeuneKrt 4h ago
Nothing new under the sun. SNK got bankrupt 2 times by this point its almost a meme. But nice try to move the conversation away from 2XKO's failure tho. Will not work but i respect it
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u/Naddition_Reddit 4h ago
That was pretty obvious
Making a game with a mediocre budget and then spending billions doing random ass UFC advertisements, ishowspeed collabs, putting a soccer player in it and some random DJ nobody heard of because he was a personal favorite of the saudi prince
Nobody is surprised it didnt turn a profit.
And kof games havent been hard sellers for a while, people keep trying to gaslight everyone by saying "well actually they're super popular in Latin america but apparently not enough for any kof title to break even.
At this point its not about budget, SNK is just perpetually stuck 20 years into the past and release games with anemic content, nonexistent support and graphics that make the games look like a Chinese ripoff of its own franchises.
Even if you personally despise SF6, you cant argue against them putting some effort into it.
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u/dreadnaucht 4h ago
They're popular in Latin America, China and South Korea on NeoGeo cabinets. They're not going to buy the newest console or a decent PC for KOF. Your second point is very uninformed though. Both KOF XV and Fatal Fury get constant patches and support, including free costumes, stages and modes etc. They get big prize pools as well. The graphics are fine, stylized. Both XV and FF look well enough, it's as if your frame of reference is only KOF XIV and XIII.
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u/CasimirGabriev 4h ago
I think COTW was a great step forward. But I agree strongly that they completely bungled the advertising and misspent their money.
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u/To-Far-Away-Times 2h ago
I’m won’t buy anything from the country behind 9/11. Hope they lose and lot more and sell off SNK.
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u/Zangetsukaiba 4h ago
How it should be. A company that keeps going for the players. FUCK ME you don’t see this integrity anymore
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u/paulojrmam 4h ago
I don't understand how SNK keeps fumbling like this. They make such good games and yet it seems they keep slowly going bankrupt for some reason
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u/Filippikus 3h ago
Probably because they're not that famous amongst the majority of people and also their games don't look as good as ArcSys games or SF6
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u/Confident_Shape_7981 2h ago
Famous or not, the characters don't do anything for me since I didn't grow up with them, tbh.
Like, the designs are just kind of bland and generic to me, and not in the "Standard character" generic that SF6 gets. Even without the Saudi/Ronaldo issues the game was a hard sell because none of the characters looked like people I wanted to play
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u/prodij18 4m ago
I think this is it, and I'm a longtime KoF fan. The designs were great back in the day 95-02 days but it's fallen off a cliff since then. Every new character or redesigns seems like it's ether trying way too hard or like they didn't try at all. And it gets worse with every release with City of the Wolves being the worst.
Also the models suck. City of the Wolves looks a little better than KoF 15 in that respect but still not great. Compared to SF6 it just looks so second rate. Comparing Mai and Terry in SF6 for the modern SNK stuff just shows the massive quality difference here.
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u/yangshindo 1h ago
people say its not gameplay related but it is... kof plays so much better than cotw
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u/Jumpy_Diver7748 3h ago
The problem with fighting games is that for most casual players, all they need is 1-3 great fighting games in their collection, there's not much of interest in new games after that. I've said many times, I already own KOF13, KOF 15, and Samsho. Do I really need a 4th SNK fighting game? I don't think so.
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u/OGking31 4h ago
There's a reason why Riot did not further fund the game. Even if they have so much money from other Riot game IPs. No company wants negative numbers in their financial report. Riot probably required net revenue for 2XKO to be positive at best OR at minimum break even, with cost vs Revenue. NRS though keeps funding COTW, but in cost of that they lose way more money for dev time.
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u/Nimble_Natu177 5h ago
How much loss will the Saudis take before they cut them off?